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Wayne Mattox, owner of Wayne Mattox Antiques, sits at an 18th century American desk in his shop at 82 Main Street North in Woodbury. Before the recession, the 200-year-old desk, which is in perfect original condition, would have fetched $8,000, Mattox said. Today, he plans to sell it for $4,000. Laraine Weschler Republican-American

Mattox, one of many dealers that still populate Woodbury's main street, is confident that the market is on its way back up.

S. Clayton Pennington, editor of the Maine Antiques Digest, one of the industry's most authoritative publications, agreed — up to a point.

"People who are collectors, it's in their blood. I mean, they have to collect. They've had it with the doldrums and they're starting to get back into the market," Pennington said.

Overall, Pennington said, there is a lot of ground to make up. "From what we see, the overall market for the past couple years is that the best stuff still sells, the middle of the road stuff is a tough sell and the lower end is just about dead," Pennington said.

Lincoln Sander, executive director of the Newtown-based Antiques Dealers' Association of America, said it's too early to tell how things will shake out.

"This can be just a hiccup in the market, or it may be the beginning of a trend," Sander said.

Still, Sander said, the market is better today than it was a year or two ago.

During the recession, Sander said, the high-end market disappeared.

With those masterpiece items sitting in only a few hands, the owners simply didn't sell them, Sander said.

He said his members sell to connoisseur collectors, that 1 percent of people who still have plenty of money.

"They've come out of their shell and they're back buying again, but they only want the best," Sander said.

The high end items are back to where they were before the housing bubble burst, Sander said, but mid-market items languish.

At the high end, individual furniture pieces still fetch tens of thousands to millions of dollars, Sander said, but furniture of the same age and origin but of lesser craftsmanship might only sell for a few hundred dollars.

For example, before the crash a New England Queen Anne flattop highboy, a generally recognized chest of drawers of good quality, would sell for $30,000 to $50,000. That same piece might sell today for $15,000 to $25,000, Sander said. But a masterpiece Queen Anne highboy, of which there are very few, sold in excess of $100,000 before the crash and still does. Sander said he knows of one that sold recently for $500,000.

Pennington said there are no hard statistics on how big the antiques market is, but experts agreed that the biggest part of the market remains in a slump.

Antiques experts blamed the slow market on a mixture of the economy and changing tastes.

Jack DeStories, owner of Fairfield Auctions in Monroe, said the market for early American furniture was on the decline five to 10 years before the recession.

"I think what we saw would've happened regardless of the recession or not," he said.

WHILE OTHER TYPES OF ANTIQUES including high end art and Chinese antiques have bounced back since the recession, 18th century furniture has not.

DeStories said the increased popularity in mid-century modern furniture has eaten into the market for early American furniture.

"Most people don't want to own the same kinds of things their parents had," DeStories said.

Karen Reddington-Hughes, owner of Abrash Galleries on Main Street in Woodbury and president of the Woodbury Antiques Dealers Association, said that five years ago, people were purists.

"Today, you see much more of an eclectic mix with the design," Reddington-Hughes said.

Mattox said the international market is helping to bolster sales.

With populations in China and other Eastern countries becoming richer, checkbooks are opening, Mattox said.

He said the Internet and sophisticated transportation systems have made it easy to move antiques all over the world. Mattox said he has done business with customers in Russia, China and Ireland.

Monique Shay, owner of Monique Shay Antiques on Main Street South in Woodbury, said the market has changed completely since she started her business 34 years ago. These days, most sales are made online, she said.

"People don't come to Woodbury as much as they did," she said.

She said she still sells her items for the prices she believes they're worth, but she's not selling as much.

"I'm lucky that I'm still surviving," Shay said.

Local dealers said now is a good time to buy precisely because prices are low.

"If you bought a nice chest, you're going to get something back for it when you sell it or trade up to a nicer chest ... If you go buy a chest from Ikea, try selling that when you're done with it," Pennington said.

For those who are willing to spend time looking and learning, it is possible to furnish a home with antiques for less money than it would cost to buy new furniture, Sander said.

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chris wrote on Mar 15, 2014 5:39 AM:

" I have been in the business for several decades. I don't believe the market for antiques will recover in out lifetime. A permanent market adjustment occurred, get used to it. It spread throughout every market, collector cars, vintage musical instruments, comic books, baseball cards etc. The primary customer base, baby boomers, are flat broke. Not to say other generations are not interested in antiques at all, however they do not have the buying power that the baby boomers, as a collective once did. According to a 2011 Associated Press survey 60% of baby boomers lost value in investments because of the economic crisis, 42% are delaying retirement and 25% claim they'll never retire. And also in my opinion; baby boomers are more sentimental towards objects from the past then younger generations. Younger generations interests are more diverse and complicated. They grew up in the disposable generation. Technological development occurred more rapidly over the past 20 years, objects did not stick around long enough to gain any attachment, nor were built to last. Whereas something like a rotary phone, tube radio or a phonograph existed in a home for a baby boomers entire childhood. Memories attach to those things, not a cell phone or a laptop that lasts a few months. Most kids today don't sit in front of a tablet with their family and listen to a baseball game, that sentimental place rightfully belongs to an old Philco console radio. "

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